China

Useful Martial Arts Terms Translated In English/Chinese (Mandarin)

Part of my newfound dedication to learning Chinese Mandarin whilst here at the Wugulun Kung Fu school, I thought to myselfÂ “what would have been really useful for me to have learned before I came to the school?”.

You see, because I’m not getting on a train or bus every other day or asking how much things cost, I couldn’t make much use learning the regular phrase books before I turned up. Instead, I need to know what orders or corrections are being barked at me whilst sweating in one of the stances or how to ask about the details of the moves being demonstrated. What I was looking for then, was a set of words/phrases which are commonly used in martial arts, so that’s what I’ve compiled here.

Much as I’d like to include phrases like “How much longer of this torture?” and “Surely we’ve done enough practice of that?”, I’ve kept the list practical.

If it helps just one person in a similar situation, it’ll be mission accomplished as far as I’m concerned.

In my Lessons About Time & Chemistry post, I told how pessimistic I was about finding a shop that can replace my watch battery in a small rural town.

In my own words -“Some might argue that I can just go to the town and get one replaced there. Unfortunately, not for Dengfeng â€“ the town consists of shops selling mainly kung fu merchandise, fruit and mobile phones”.

Changes After A Week Of The New Schedule

After blogging about my frustrations and realisations last week, It appears in the week just gone, much has changed.

So what’s changed exactly?

I’ve religiously stuck to my own new mind/body/soul workout schedule
The day-to-day training from the school has become more physically demanding
I’ve made some progress in learning to meditate
I can be understood more with my mandarin
My outlook on the art here has widened

My Realisation About A Dangerous Habit

Towards the middle of last week, I was feeling a bit disappointed with the school and the teachings. I felt frustrated by repeating the same stuff (even though I was fully prepared that this is likely to happen and didn’t want to admit it) and I felt time was being wasted in-between the tougher training sessions. Having a couple of sessions rained off and others that were shorter than normal didn’t help. I thought I’d try to consider why I was frustrated. I sat down and structured all my thoughts on paper, so I could go to the guys here and speak to them. By the end of trying to get my head round it, I realised I was making a far-reaching mistake.
The short version is that, I realised I was making excuses for my own lack of motivation and blaming others for it. I decided to arrange a new schedule going forwards.
The detailed version is described below… […]

The Pressure Of Appearance

It only struck me yesterday, when I went to shave my beard, that the only place there’s a mirror around here is by the dinner hand out window. In London, I’ve been used to one in my bedroom, one in the bathroom, one in the lift and handful in and around the workplace. I realised that it’s nice to be in a place where appearance isn’t an everyday pressure or a signal of social status. So I questioned why do we care about appearance and why doesn’t it matter here?